“Oh, really? You play guitar?”
I freeze.
I’m back on my feet. Pacing around the vending machine. At a loss. Feeling stupid.My brain mustreallybe shot tonight.
“That makes sense,” he reasons out so calmly, my pacing feels like such a comical overreaction. “After watchingKarate Kidas a … well .. as akid… I begged my parents to let me take karate classes. But Spruce didn’t really have anything like that ten years ago.” He senses I’m not following. “So obviously being a huge Chase Holt fan, you probably took up guitar at some point for fun.”
I stop. Icouldtake the out he just gave me. “Um …”
“Or do I have it backwards? Were you already playing guitar? Sorry to presume.” He chuckles at himself. “Noteverythingin your life has to be about Chase Holt, I do realize.”
This is getting tricky. “I just love playin’ the guitar. Soothes me like nothin’ else.” That sounds like a safe answer, right? Relying on the truth without spilling the whole truth. “Took lessons when I was a teen.”
“I’d love to hear you play sometime.”
You already have, I’m desperate to say. This is not fucking easy. Every word that comes out of my mouth makes me feel ickier. “I’d like that,” I tell him anyway, deciding to interpret this as:Someday soon, you’ll know exactly who I am, and all of this dancin’ around the truth won’t be necessary.
Then I wonder if that’s true at all. Will I ever tell him? Would I ever want him to know who I am?
Would that scare him away from me forever?
“When are you coming back?” he asks, a touch softer.
Maybe he’s nervous that I wasn’t planning to. He doesn’t want to presume. “In about four days,” I tell him.
“Four?”
He’s surprised. How do I explain this? “There were a few more shows added. So …” I go quiet and squeeze shut my eyes. How do I finish this sentence? That I’m choosing Chase Holt concerts over seeing him? Is this really gonna fly? What kind of deranged, super-obsessed fan boy am I trying to portray here? I’ve already gotten tickets to these last-minute shows?
I’m astounded when Timothy exclaims, “Oh, that sounds cool! How exciting! Even more of something you love!” He chuckles at that. “Well, you’vedefinitelygotta go to them, then.”
I blink. “Uh, right.”
“His concerts can’t happen without you there!”
I’m already sick of the unintended double meanings that keep spilling from his cute mouth. “Right … of course they can’t,” I say back, accidentally adding to said double meanings, clutching my chest and taking a fistful of my shirt while considering in a very real way whether I should just rip the bandage off now and tell him everything or keep up this agonizing charade.
I’m afraid to lose him. Obviously that’s what this is.
Even if he’s okay with the deception. Even if he understands. Something tells me hewillunderstand. He’s bright and patient and considerate and fucking sensitive. Why wouldn’t he?
But does he want to invite my crazy into his small-town calm?
He’s just a college kid home for the summer in his peaceful, completely undisturbed corner of Texas. He’s making the best of his structured life in a house warmed by parental love, even if that love is sometimes a tad much. I imagine his overbearingparents listening in at the door of his every phone conversation with me.
And if they knew he was seeing Chase Holt …
If they knew what he risks just by being seen with me …
I can’t fuckin’ lose him.
“I’ve got a lot of shifts at T&S’s next few days,” he goes on, “so I guess this sorta works out, right? And, I mean …” His voice shifts. “I didn’t mean to … uh … presume you’d want to drive all the way out here the next time you’re free. It’s okay if once was enough.”
If once was enough…? “Of course I do,” I blurt out before I can help it. Then I realize how thirsty I just sounded. I let go of my shirt—yes I was still clutching a fistful—and speak calmer. “How else am I gonna know how Little A and Kit-Cat are doin’?”
I hear more sheets twisting, like he just rolled over. “You … seriously named the cat, too …?”
“They deserve names, y’know.”